TowerNetWeb

September 19, 2011

Making Use Of Woodworking Plans

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 5:39 pm

Wood work takes talent and persistence. It also requires attention to detail. Measurements have to be got right and things have to fit. Parts must be symmetrical. Angles must be just right. On top of all this, an object has to be rugged and beautiful. That is a very tall order and so the furniture maker, cabinet maker or carpenter needs all the help he or she can get. One of the best forms of help is to follow a set of wood working plans.

A good set of wood working plans ought to show an exploded diagram of the object in question, say, a garden bench for the patio. The plans for such a bench might include recommendations for the wood to be used, for example, hardwood because it will be exposed to the elements, a range of appropriate sizes, say minimum one metre and maximum three metres and how long the project should take to finish, for example, 24 man hours. The plans might also give a complexity rating: novice, intermediary or skilled.

Wood working plans are not there for ‘dumbing down’ the creation of an object, although their function is to make creating it easier. The plans will give you measurements so that you do not have to work them out for yourself, although you might decide to make the object 10% bigger,for example.

You could for example that the plans are there so that you do not have to keep reinventing the wheel. They take some of the slog out of making something and permit the carpenter more time to get on with the actual construction process.

Despite the fact that people use wood working plans, it does not mean that everyone who uses the same plans will make identical objects, say, furniture. Two people might use the same plans for a garden bench, but come to a decision to finish their bench with different edge patterns, a different back or distinctive legs.

The plans will give sizes and suggestions, but for the craftsman, they can be just pointers, sizes, the real ingenuity goes on in the mind. A little twist here, an extra flourish there – the true craftsman will use his wood working plans only as a reference for the mundane, but critically necessary measurements, the detail will come from his head.

There are a few places that you can find wood working plans. Traditionally, craftsmen or hobbyists would go to craft shops, home improvement stores or even the library, but nowadays, it is simpler to find exactly what you want on the Internet. Not only that, but the plans you find in books are necessarily small and the centre crease in a book can mean that a photocopy will become distorted, whereas a download from the Internet can be printed out neatly and enlarged quite easily.

If you decide to use the Internet for your wood working plans, try to find a site that specializes in this sort of plans, because there are a lot of plans about that are just a little too vague to be of any use to anyone but the expert, whereas a good set of wood working plans will enable even a complete novice to make a very decent item of furniture.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, bench woodworking plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

August 18, 2011

How T Use A Wooden Closet Organizer To Full Advantage

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 1:39 pm

Closet organizers allow you to make the most of the room within your closet or wardrobe. Not only that, but it also permits you to arrange your closet’s contents so that they are easily retrievable. A closet organizer permits you to put your shoes together, your belts together and to sort out all your other accessories. There is no doubt that a closet organizer is a good idea, the only choice left is whether you make or buy your closet organizer.

The best closet organizer will fit your closet neatly, perfectly. This makes buying one the worse option, so if you are at all practical, the better choice is to make your own closet organizer to fit your closet precisely. There is of course, one other alternative, you could have it made for you, but that is the most costly option.

If you come to a decision to assemble your organizer yourself, the simplest thing to do is to get hold of a good set of woodworking drawings. The wood working plans will depict an exploded diagram of the closet organizer. Therefore, if your closet is not the same size as the one in the drawing, you will have to adjust the dimensions in the drawings.

This is not so hard, you will just have to work out the ratio of the closet organizer in the plans to the size of your own closet. For instance if the closet in the plans is four feet wide but your closet is six feet wide, you will need to enlarge the dimensions in the drawings by 50%. Similarly for the depth of the closet.

If you make a decision to have the organizer made up for you, you will have to specify the timber to be used and the finish to be applied to it. These decisions will also have to be taken if you decide to make your organizer yourself. If you do , it is best for you to get all the bits and pieces together that you will need before you begin manufacture.

Another matter is what you want the organizer to hold. This could differ depending on your sex. Women tend to have more accessories, men tend to have more socks. Therefore, a woman’s closet organizer should have lots of small drawers, whereas a man’s may only have a few of them.

The wood you use to make the organizer from should go with the colour and type of timber already used in the manufacture of the wardrobe or closet itself. It is better if they match. There really is little point in investing in a hand-made closet organizer made from mahogany and beautifully stained, if the wardrobe itself is made from compressed wood chippings.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wood furniture plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our website, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

August 16, 2011

Wood Working Projects For Kids

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 1:41 pm

It is tremendously therapeutic to be busy with a wood working project. If you are not a carpenter by trade, it is very relaxing to come home from whatever you do, but particularly if you are an office worker, and make something with your hands. Woodworking projects are fun and rewarding and after the project is finished, you have something that is functional or and ornamental, which you can even sell if you want to. So why should we not encourage our children to take on wood working projects from an early age as well?

Having said that many wood working tools are razor-sharp and dangerous, so the children would have to be supervised at least until they showed the right level of ability and regard for the tools. Furthermore, the projects would have to be carefully chosen to match their increasing level of skill.

The best idea would probably be if a grown up were to be occupied with his or her wood working project and the child or children were busy with theirs at the same time in the same room. In this way, the child could be helped with and taught about potentially hazardous machinery and tools. They could be helped and taught at the same time.

What is an suitable age to begin? Well, many schools begin teaching woodwork at about 12 years of age, but you know how grown-up your child is better than anyone. You could hold your ‘wood working classes’ on the weekend or during the school’s annual holidays. Children often get fed up and restless in the long summer break, so a couple of simple wood working projects would keep them occupied.

Wood working projects for kids should be relatively simple but also be practical, say, a bird table with a little house on it. Or a dog kennel or a stool. They could make a set of draughts (checkers), a board and a box to put the pieces in. A pencil box with a sliding top, a letter box or a herbs and spices rack.

There are loads of wood working projects that are suitable for children. Ask them what they would like to make, but it might be better to ask them to select from a list that you have prepared, otherwise they may settle on a woodworking project that is out of their range and become downhearted when you veto it.

If you yourself are not skillful at wood working, you may find it useful to look up a collection of wood working projects and select from this catalogue. You can get books of projects and I am sure that your library has some also, but there are specialist web sites that have thousands and thousands of woodworking plans for download. This is probably the best way to go about selecting suitable wood working projects for kids.

A good set of wood working plans will contain an exploded diagram of the item to be made, a narrative explaining the flow of the work and all the measurements you will need. These wood working project plans might also give you a difficulty rating and suggest which tools you will need to finish the wood working project as well.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, bench woodworking plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

June 1, 2011

Choosing Your Garden Furniture

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 12:28 pm

Once you have finished laying your patio, your deck or your lawn, you will unquestionably start thinking about how you can enjoy more time out of doors. Therefore, you will need some garden furniture. Many places sell garden furniture. You can try home improvement centres, large department stores and garden centres. There are also businesses on line that will deliver. The difficult job is picking your garden furniture.

There is a very broad choice of designs of garden furniture – a design to suit every person and complement every garden. So, before hurrying down to the garden centre, it is worth considering for a while what you would like to accomplish with your open-air seating area. Do you require a theme? Do you want to have company or dine there? Or do you just want to sit quietly, enjoy your garden and read a book?

Indeed, the answer may well be a permutation of all those things. If you simply want to sit there with a drink and a book, you may be satisfied to just buy a couple of chairs and a small table, but if you want to have guests or eat family meals outside, you may prefer a more substantial table. A large oak table would be quite costly, but it would look magnificent and last for a ten years or more.

If you choose a table, you will have to have chairs to match, but do you want loungers as well? They could be of plastic and kept in the shed until wanted.

You will likely need some form of shade. This can be supplied by folding, even removable umbrellas or by overhanging trees or shrubs. Wisteria or clematis can do the task as well and cost you next to nothing.

Do you intend cooking in this space? If you do, what and how? Do you fancy a barbecue pit or a proper hob and oven? A lot of people in regions where the climate permits are doing a great deal of cooking outside in a carbon copy of an indoor kitchen, but without all the walls.. If you plan the outdoor kitchen carefully, you will be able to use it in the rain too. I find it lovely not to have kitchen smells in the house and cooking out of doors is a good experience as well.

If it gets nippy in the evenings then you can think about buying some patio heaters. They are not expensive to buy or to run and one standard patio heater can keep quite a group of people warm. (By the word ’standard’ here, I mean upright, like a lamp post).

Lighting is the last large point on the list when deciding on garden furniture. There are actually two sorts of garden lighting to mull over: lighting to see by and lighting to lure insects away. Again, you could use standard lamps to light up your patio. They shine their light far enough so that you can still look at your garden after dark or you could have individual wall light on dimmers.

The one light I would categorically have is a mosquito lantern. Hang this away from where you sit, because they do attract insects to them which they then electrocute with a gratifying zap.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is at present involved with visual comfort lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

May 4, 2011

How To Extend The Life Of Your Summer Garden

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 1:11 pm

The overwhelming majority of gardens look their best in the summer whether they produce flowers, fruit or vegetables, the same is probably true of your garden. When the garden looks so good and the weather is fine, it is lovely to spend more time out of doors.

There are two means of approaching this: you can try to extend the growing life of your garden by say a few weeks or a month or / and you can extend the number of hours you can sit in the garden per day. By taking both routes you will get the greatest pleasure from your summer garden.

The first thing you can do to extend the life of your summer garden is construct some raised growing beds. Raised growing beds heat up more quickly and cool down more slowly than a growing bed in the soil. This is because the brick walls of the raised beds will absorb and hold the sun’s heat, warming the soil faster and retaining it.

It will also chill down more slowly as winter draws on because frost comes up from the ground and your raised beds will be that much higher so the chill will have to travel further. You can also try to heat these raised beds artificially if the first frost has not yet arrived. Apply the heat to the walls of the beds.

You may find that the cost of heating the flower beds is not worth the money, but if you have a special function on just at that time of the year when the weather usually takes a change for the worse, you may think the cost worth it to have a beautiful floral display for that special day.

Raised growing beds are definitely the best route to take, but if for some reason you cannot construct some raised beds, you could give your plants a head start by planting them in pots ahead of when the first frost is predicted for. if you have a greenhouse, you will be able to get even flowers started in this way. Then, you could transplant more mature plants outside when the weather permits. This will extend the life of your summer garden forward a little.

Another way of extending the garden’s summer life a little is to cover the plants over at night. However, you must keep an eye on the plants, because these covers are very effective. You have to be able to remove them before the sun warms up or your plants may swelter. You cannot go to work in the morning and leave your plants covered over all day.

The second way to get more enjoyment from your summer garden is to extend the number of hours per day that you can sit outside. This is easily achieved with exterior lighting. You can either run electric wiring to your garden and have lighting installed or you can use solar powered lighting, which will save you money on installation and electricity costs.

Once you have enough light, the only other things you might have to have to extend the life of your summer garden are a mosquito trap and a patio heater.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present concerned with exterior lighting fixtures. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

April 28, 2011

Schools For Woodworking

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 5:57 pm

Wood is by far the most fashionable material in the world for home items such as chairs, benches, doors, windows, cabinets, tables, wardrobes and jewellery boxes. Wood is still extensively used to make houses in many countries and not even only poor countries either. So it follows that woodworking is one of the most sought after skills in the world too.

Even though there is always a high demand for items made from wood, there is always a shortage of good wood workers, carpenters and cabinet makers. This makes woodworking in any of its various guises a good trade to enter. Previously, there were shuttering carpenters, joiners, carpenters, ships’ carpenters, furniture makers, cabinet makers and wood workshop workers. These different varieties have merged to a certain degree.

So, what do you do if you want to enter the trade? Well, the traditional course was to become an apprentice to a tradesman, but that practice largely died out in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The route now is more likely to be through school and technical college, coupled with short term placements in industry until the ‘apprentice’ has passed his or, more and more often these days, her, final exams.

There is a lot of competition for jobs in the construction industry in the West at the moment, so credentials are pretty indispensable, although any foreman carpenter knows within fifteen minutes of watching someone working how skilled that person is. They can usually tell just by glancing in their tool bag in fact.

At woodworking school, besides being taught how to handle, cut and shape wood, the student will also be taught other subjects such as relevant mathematics, how to identify different timbers, woodworking tools and equipment, how to read woodworking plans and architectural drawings, how to finish wood, such as polishing and varnishing and health and safety.

At woodworking school the student is introduced to the many facets and niche trades of woodworking and it is hoped that the student will develop a preference or even an aptitude for one niche over another. This allows the teacher to steer the student down the specialized route relevant to that niche and find the student placements within industry relevant to the student’s particular interests.

From this point on, the woodworking class may begin to be segmented so that each section can specialize in its own specific niche. This may not occur until the second or third year of a three or four year course. At this point it is worth mentioning that the student should go as far as possible down the path to his or her niche as he/she can.

This is because, on a building site, it is generally recognized that the carpenter is in the most highly educated tradesman on site. It is for this reason that most general foremen are carpenters. Under the general foreman, there may be a foreman bricklayer, a foreman painter et cetera, but the foreman of these foremen is normally a carpenter.

Therefore, other abilities will have to be honed too. Once the student has left school and found employment, it is worth still going to night classes or asking the boss if there is a day release scheme to continue education. If being foreman is an objective, then you will need a good command of language in order to liaise with customers, fellow workers and management.

You will need people skills too and an ability to read plans and drawings and understand the financial aspects of a job. You will also have to be able to handle rude clients and grumpy bosses and learn what you can and what you cannot do to correct late or lazy workers.

They may teach some of the theory of these subjects in woodworking school, but not as much as you will learn on site. Once you have learned the basics of how a real site works, then you can go back to night school to learn the finer points. In woodworking, as in all professions, you never know enough so you must always keep learning.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wine rack plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

April 3, 2011

The Advantages Of A Swimming Pool

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:41 pm

A swimming pool is an endeavor to create a safe, handy environment in which to swim. However, they are quite expensive to install and to maintain. If you live in one of the temperate zones, it is probable that you can find a river, lake or stretch of sea to swim in during the summer months. If you live in the tropics then you can swim all year round but the waters are likely to be more perilous.

So, a swimming pool is an excellent alternative. Public swimming pools are all right, but you have to select your times carefully or the water is full of discourteous kids frolicking about or old people just standing in the way of serious swimmers.

This can be very maddening and frustrating, which are two of the emotions you went to the pool to divest yourself of after a difficult day. You can actually come out feeling more frustrated and annoyed than you went in.

The solutions are: join a private swimming club or spa; build your own pool; or marry someone who is rich. If you have the money, the best alternative of all is to have your own pool.

Although a swimming pool is costly, it is not money wasted. Not just will a swimming pool encourage you to adopt a (more vigorous) fitness regime, a well-manufactured swimming pool it will also add greatly to the value of your property.

People like to move into a home with a pool, because then they do not have to endure builders and mounds of soil and jack-hammers and dumpers and noise for weeks and weeks on end.

Even better is if the pool has been properly cultivated with trees and bushes in the right places to provide shade if required and sweetly scented flowers and bushes to supply wonderful smells wafting over on a breeze. All this ought to be set in a well-manicured lawn.

It is probable that you will have to have some form of pool fence, depending on where you live, so check on that, but put the fence as far back from the pool as you can or are permitted. You do not want to feel hemmed into your swimming pool.

There are two alternatives with pools; above and below ground. But there is no real choice if you have the space and money – it has to be below ground every time.

One of the cheapest options of underground swimming pools is to use fibreglass. It is a far cheaper way than a lot of people know. In fact, it passes most people by because they do not know about it. However, imagine all the work it saves on butyl liners, waterproofing, tiling, grouting, etc.

The fibreglass pool is dropped into a hole and then you paint it – blue or green or turquoise, if you cannot make up your mind; tile the surround and you are done. Then it is on with your favourite swimming costume and in you go.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now involved with Plus Size Bikinis. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Swimwear for Big Busts.

March 7, 2011

Garden Swimming Pool Heaters

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 2:09 pm

The most expensive aspect of owning a swimming pool is the construction of it. Maintenance is also costly. Therefore, those who have garden swimming pools usually attempt to get as many hours of use out it as they can. This equates to sitting in the garden at the poolside whenever possible and inviting friends and family around to share it all with them.

However, there is one more thing that you can do to raise the number of hours you can spend in your pool – you can extend the season that you are able to use it in. The temperature of the water is the only real constraint on swimming outside, it does not really matter whether it is snowing or raining as long as the water is warm enough.

Swimming in the rain, the mist and the snow is actually great fun, at least as much fun as swimming in the sunshine, as long as the water is warm enough and there is no lightening. The answer is to install a water heater into your swimming pool system.

A swimming pool water heater can have a drastic effect on the amount of time you can spend in your pool. If you set the thermostat at 78-80 F (about 25 C), you can double the amount of time you can spend in the water. If you live in a warm part of the country, you might only require to heat the water by a few degrees to be able swim in luxury.

A substantial body of heated water will lose most of its heat through its surface area, so it is a good concept to cover your pool with a decent quality insulation blanket-cum-pool cover. The insulated pool blankets will reduce your heating bills quite considerably and it will raise the level of pool safety considerably as well.

The most common systems for heating swimming pool water are liquid petroleum gas (LPG) or oil fired. These systems are simple to set up and comparatively cheap to run. Electricity is also used, but it is not economical. If you live in the correct area meaning that you just require to raise the water temperature a couple of degrees, you could use solar power.

The problem with solar power is the profit margin the retailers want to make. If you make your own panels, buy in kit form or purchase secondhand panels, solar power would be the best approach, if you have the sun, but not quite enough heat.

At the time, gas-powered swimming pool water heating is still by far the simplest to set up and run and so offers the best solution to heating your pool. You will be able to get LPG water heaters secondhand from numerous sources and you will be able to purchase new from the Net as well. EBay is another good source of LPG swimming pool water heaters

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now involved with Plus Size Bikinis. If you would like to know more, please go to our web site at Swimwear for Big Busts.

March 2, 2011

Garden Swimming Pool Safety

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 8:54 pm

If you have a swimming pool, you have to be aware of the safety aspects concerning that pool. There is no counter-argument, that is one of the legal duties of an owner of a swimming pool . You are going to get visitors coming around who cannot swim; guests who have eaten or drunken too much and should not swim; children and skinny-dipping teenage intruders and you have to provide a safe environment in which to swim for all or them or deny access.

The first aspect of swimming pool safety to tackle is the denial of access and the easiest way of doing this is the assembly of a security fence. It will deny access to passing children, interlopers and people who came around to see you on the off-chance when you were not in.

There are thousands of drownings by misadventure in garden swimming pools each year – most of them are children and drunks, who would still be alive today, if the pool had been locked up.

If you have your own children who cannot swim, get them taught as soon as you can and drill some safety routines into them. For example, they must never get in the pool without an adult supervising them and they must always wear flotation devices, which means that you should always have flotation devices on hand.

You will need waist rings, arm bands and life jackets. Those for use in a swimming pool by children are not costly and can be inflatable. It is also a good idea to have some pieces of styrofoam floating about just in case someone gets tired unexpectedly.

Make sure that there is always a capable swimmer on hand who knows basic First Aid, especially artificial respiration with particular reference to drowning. In fact, why not take the whole family down to the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade and all get your life-savers certificate? The least you should have is a proper life belt – ocean-going – on a rope that is long enough to reach anywhere in your pool and tie off the loose end.

It may be possible to get away with not having a security fence, if you use an above ground swimming pool, but you will have to confirm with the local authorities on that one. You will also have to take away the access ladders while it is not in use. Forgetting to do so could equate to criminal negligence if anyone were to drown in your pool.

Swimming pool safety is primarily about saving lives but it is also about the peace of mind of the owner of the swimming pool. If someone were to drown in your pool and you knew that you had not done everything within your power to prevent it, you would almost certainly carry that burden of guilt with you for the rest of your life, particularly if it was a child and even more so if it was your child or the child of one of your guests.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with Plus Size Bikinis. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Swimwear for Big Busts.

Woodworking Projects – Decking

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 7:32 pm

Timber, or wood, is still the first choice for furniture and other home and garden projects like decking. However, there is a huge variety of sorts of timber to choose from. The first alternative is whether you will use hardwood or softwood. Hardwood is a lot more expensive, but it will not decay as quickly as softwood.

Both hardwood and softwood are attractive or can be made to look beautiful with a suitable finish. Softwood normally takes more looking after, but can last just as long as hardwood, if it is preserved properly. If you want to paint the wood, then softwood is the better choice, because hardwood does not permit paint to soak in very well, but it will take staining, oiling and thin varnishing.

Once you have chosen which type of timber you are going to use, you can think about which variety you want to use. If you are going to use hardwood, you have many choices, such as teak, mahogany or oak et cetera. If you want softwood the most common timber used is pine. Whichever you finally use, select each piece of timber with care. You do not want warped, curved lengths of timber or lengths with an unwarranted number of knots in it. A good carpenter will inspect each length in person.

Then you will need something to hold the decking down. Nails or screws? Screws are almost certainly best because they will not come loose if the timber dries out. If you are using softwood, it will be alright to use stainless steel screws, but if you are using costly hardwood, then I would use brass screws.

You will probably need three inch screws and they should be neatly countersunk, so that the screw’s head is just below the surface of the wood. You can then plug it or not. Yes with steel screws, not with brass screws, but it is really up to your personal preference.

Prepare the area before you begin. It is probably best to use a concrete or slabbed base. This should be level and above the normal flow of rain water in your garden. If it does get wet, as when you wash it down, the water should fall through the boards and then flow away. You do not want it to stay under the decking so that mosquitoes can reproduce in it.

It is not hard to lay a wooden deck, but it a good idea to obtain a set of decking plans to work by. They will ensure that you do not miss a stage. They will also give you good hints and tips about which materials to use and how to finish your deck so that it does not rot quickly.

Once you have laid your own decking according to the plans, you could put an advert in the local paper and hire your services out to neighbours and locals. Everybody likes the thought of lounging out on their deck or porch in the evening and once you become a regular customer at the builders’ merchant or lumber yard, you may meet the criteria for substantial discounts on materials, which will make your pricing more competitive.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wood furniture plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress